Owen: She always has the best like-
Elizabeth: Everything? Both: Yeah
Umu: Okay, Cacophony~
Nick: *happy gasp*
You're now reacting to the K-Indie artist Cacophony, and two songs from her 2019 album dream.
The first song called "X" will focus on the theme of loss,
the lyrics express the pain experienced by a couple who have fallen out of love, but persist with the relationship.
The song is written, composed, and arranged by her.
Aaron: Cool
Isaac: Alright 3, 2, 1, X.
Ooh. Straight from the get-go. Kevin: Yeah
[Isaac mimics the drums]
K: Ooh.
Already subversion of expectation, because you have the horror movie high note,
and then a chord comes in.
That's Cacophony for you!
I've always wondered, I've heard that sound before that didlidli- that I, that was a terrible impression of it- like the
It's still there, it's like kind of glass shards really up high.
A: I think I've talked about this before, with Cacophony,
that she like,
creates a space to make her music.
before the music starts,
Nick: Mhm A: that's what she did with the bwaaaa [the opening of the song]
K: Ooh, bass doing weird things
[Kevin mimics what she just sung]
O: She always has the best like- E: Everything? Both: Yeah.
O: how do you get that sound!?!?
and thEY DID MA- THEY WENT TO MAjor
Henry: Yeah, it's going between...(left and right headphones)
Cloud: I'm like bass? hello?
K: Now it sounds like weird night creatures
There's a major/minor play going on like a chord will start in major and then their instrument would
continue that same chord but the parallel minor.
O: These chords are so fluid
That's what I really, like is that it doesn't feel like there's any sort of limitation at all, in any of her music.
It's just like anything is possible,
And it's a- it's always interesting where we go.
A: It's like a darker, futuristic...
N: Yeah, I keep waiting for it to just like explode into this like...
huge floor...of like array of sounds and it's just really, really,
Like contained, reserved, (A: i would say so) like held back a little.
C: It wouldn't be Cacophony if there wasn't something weird and electronic somewhere in it.
H: Where are we now?
N: What a weird...place she's taken us...
Don't you think?
A: *laughing* Yes.
K: Are we ending it here? This is a good place to end the song.
I don't want it to come back.
The nice little tonic echo!
buuum [imitates said nice little tonic echo]
Just to complete it. That's great, that's exactly how it should have ended.
N: Oh my god, is that how it ends
A: I feel like we went through various levels of the twilight zone.
N: Wow, I need more. A: Um...
N: It just kind of evolved.
I kept waiting for it to like bring me into this like really intense like
raw sincere like,
the kind of music that Cacophony sometimes gives to other her other songs, and it,
it just like it evolved, and it evolved, and it always just sat on the ledge of that cliff
and we never like plunged down. It's really cool.
and kinda unnerving.
A: *nodding intensely* I agree with all of that
C: She creates a lot of,
propelling forward like movement, where she's like pushing you towards something, and then doesn't go forward.
Like it just kind of stays where it was, and like
Even that ending cause the [mimics the way the ending builds then fades]
H: Yeah. C: Like it's like they're giving you this huge crescendo into a drop
and then the drop never comes. And like- you're like 'hello??'
James: *big, dramatic sigh* U: Brianna do you wanna go first?
Brianna: She explores like the different tonalities of things, and how far she can push the box, like modally.
Her voice is just like, it's super expressive that- I think that's one thing about Cacophony I've noticed, is like,
from this song and the other song that we saw, it's just saying the way she sings it has always like emotion behind it
J: Yeah. B: Even when she gets this like, grit to her sound, it's supposed to convey
like this a different feeling, and it's not always the same feeling and it invokes something inside of you, you're just like
Wooow.
J: This may be a little far out- and lol, that's kind of a pun-
but I was getting space vibes.
And then the reason I bring it up is because it fits a little bit with the lyrics, at one part
It's like, I think she says "I have love,
but you're not receiving it."
and then she like flips it and she says "you have love and I can't find it"
or something like that, basically that they both have love for each other, but for some reason they're just like
they've fallen out of it, or they're they're missing each other somehow, and
with the kind of sound she was using, it just sounded like
you're out in space and you're just like sending out signals
in every random direction hoping that it'll hit
where- it'll go where it's supposed to go, but it's space and it's vast and it's
endless, so you're you're missing and you're not getting signals back.
This feeling that she's singing about
Happens completely internally.
Everything looks fine on the outside.
You know like, oh there was another lyric where she said like "your smile..."
Aw shit. U: "Your smile tells me that I don't matter"
J: Yeah, you're smiling at each other but- and it seems fine from the outside- but you know that things aren't right.
And I think it's important that she was singing about going on with your day to day life,
But she's singing about it with such like, pain.
That's what it feels like on the inside, even though you may not be portraying it on the outside.
U: Yeahhhhhh. J: Yeah.
U: Okay, well you'll be comparing 'X' to the next song on that album called 'Believe'.
And then, like the title says, the song is about belief or lack thereof.
Cacophony sings about her inability to believe her partner truly loves her,
saying she can't see the love in his facial expressions
the lyrics expressed doubt and confusion, which can be heard in the music.
K: Do you believe Both: in love after love?
K: WOW, WE'RE THE SAME PERSON
Both *sing*: Do you believe in love K: after love?
I: Musicians, (K: Three) we call ourselves.
E: Three, two, one, go.
O: Ooh.
E: That is an excellent use of autotune O: She can do anything
A: 'Cause she's definitely comfortable using her raw voice. (N: Absolutely, yeah.) So this is just different.
[Aaron mimicking part of the song]
K: M'kay, wow.
I: I wonder for the process. She just she has her hand on the knob (K: Mhm) just like 'this, it's probably better up here, (K: Mm) better down here.'
[Isaac mimics a noise]
When the beat comes constant, that's where her voice stays constant.
E: There's so much noise too... it
I'm friends with a lot of musicians who make noise music and
like the sort of...
weird distortion noises kind of... in the peripheral of your sound I think-
C: I feel so spoiled. H: Right!
N: This is sinister, oh my god. A: It's like sinister bug music
These like percu- or
not synthesizers.
Whatever the bug sounding that thing- It sounds like bugs.
I get insect-y vibes from
her music sometimes.
H: Two part harmony.
O: I feel like... this is
it's indescribable because of how raw everything she puts out are- is
and like because of how indescribable raw emotions are.
Like it doesn't feel like there's a barrier between how she is and what we're hearing
kind of like they Beethoven's last string quartets.
Just kind of like- there's no- like the music is just the perfect medium
for her brain to ours,
there's no like
Pretense or anything stopping str- her straight to us.
I don't know. I think she's just so
I'm just at a loss for words. Words can't capture how...
How that felt.
E: Yeah, that's it's one of my favorite parts about her music I think, is that it's definitely
such a reflection of emotion.
And I think there are things that you can say with music that you cannot say with words, and even though there are lyrics,
like so much of that song was
distortion with auto-tune in the voice, and
weird like crackling noises in the periphery,
and eerie, auto-tuned harmony going on,
and this like pounding pulse beat (O: Mm) and just the combination of all those, including like
large breaks in the form where something different was happening, this sort of like
elemental chaos going on.
It's just- it is affecting, (O: Yeah.) in a way that it's hard to put into words,
exactly how it makes you feel because that's-
I think that's the intention is to just evoke something in you that you otherwise would not have reached.
H: I like that (C: That was so good.) "I can't control myself and I need no god" or something U: Or I-
don't have a god? (H: i don't have a god) It's like I have no god H: I have- yeah
I never- I didn't catch that the first time we li- or the sequential listenings of this, but.
C: My heart is like (H: It's so unsettling) beating really fast right now and I don't know why
H: it's so unsettling it makes you feel like fight or flight.
I feel like that's the- part of the- maybe the objective of
starting a little out of tune and (C: Yeah.) and playing with the slider is to make you feel really unsettled,
and it is effective.
And then the dun dum duh dun (C: Yeah man) dun dum. Is super driving.
C: I'm telling you, like I didn't realize my heart was pounding so much (H: Yeah it gets to you.) till I was finished.
H: It gets to you C: I was like 'wow I, yeah I'm totally relaxed, and I'm like oh my god I'm s t r e s s e d.'
H: Art music this is art music.
I: I really like the beginning.
Or I like the song, let's talk about the beginning.
It's just very distorted and I made a joke that maybe she had her hand on her knob and she's like
'maybe it sounds nice up here' just like playing around, but maybe she was controlling it.
Regardless it created the effect of distortion, and then you have this constant stream of beats,
and then everything stabilizes there and
yeah, it's just, interesting listening to the end, it sounded more like a...
a really just, chant,
and then- but then the lyrics signify very different...
Don't believe in a god?
Yeah it's uhh
Confusing because I couldn't- I'm forgetting it now, well, that's one thing- but just K: It almost feels like a dream.
I: Well, it's like a dreamscape, but also maybe like losing yourself into that dream. K: Mm.
U: It's "I don't have a god"
I: "I don't have a God" and then what's the other one?
U: "I just want to believe you, I can't control myself, I don't have a god." That's how it ends.
K: There's definitely a spiritual struggle, like a belief type of struggle, even in the other song
there was this questioning of,
whether or not it's good to trust a person, and that person could be more abstract and more...
More like a deity. It could be there are many ways to interpret it.
I mean, I haven't heard the entire album yet. But from what I've heard so far,
it seems like the album cover actually completely
fits in with the message of all the songs.
Even from a musical standpoint, because we have her veiled over, with the butterfly over it.
The album is called dream,
so we can say that she's the one in the dream and the butterfly represents the reality that she's trying to wake up to.
But at the same time, you can interpret the veil as a cocoon
and that the butterfly might be some version of her that she wants to be
and she's currently in this hibernation or in (I: Growing state) this,
yeah, this live state of limbo and she's trying to break free, and I think musically it fits because there is a lot of...
dimension in the music. (I: Mm) There's a lot of very vague stuff a lot of very
fuzzy, hazy, murky stuff always, juxtaposed with very clear stuff.
It almost feels like the entire song is shifting states while different instruments
Are also shifting States within (I: Hm), and so there's like a bigger, like a Howl's Moving Castle,
but with all the steam, and the liquid, and the fire inside as well,
so it's like this giant, this giant engine thats...
Doesn't know what it wants to be, but yet blasts out with full confidence (I: Mhm) everything that it's trying to convey.
So I really really like that.
U: Did you guys prefer 'X' or 'Believe' and why?
A: I kind of like 'X' more because I thought it was more on-brand Cacophony. U: *surprised* Mm!
A: With like, and I feel like we got to hear more of just her voice, and in 'Believe' there was more editing with her voice.
I like her voice a lot, and so, I know that it's very unique to her sounding and I think it like gives her her brand.
N: I kind of liked 'Believe' for some of the same reasons that you liked 'X' actually.
'X' like fell really naturally within, um,
her sound that I like had heard with her music before and 'Believe' just expanded that
in a way that I really appreciated and I thought was really cool.
Did you guys prefer 'X' or 'Believe' better?
J: I
No. [Umu laughing in the background] I'm not answering that question. I like Cacophony as an artist.
N: Does she speak English? U: Yes. She's fluent in English, French, and Korean.
N: Does she watch us? U: Yes. Dude I interviewed her.
N: You! When? U: Like last year. N: What?